


lovecraft ain't got nothin' on me, babe

by circumlocute



Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Horror, Eldritch, Fae & Fairies, Gaslighting, Other, Parasites, Unhealthy Relationships, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circumlocute/pseuds/circumlocute
Summary: Asher can't sleep.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Nonbinary Character
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	lovecraft ain't got nothin' on me, babe

**Author's Note:**

> Aodhán is nonbinary and uses all pronouns, hence the tags.

Asher found himself awake, the rest of the house dark and silent around him. Glancing at the alarm clock informed him it was around 3AM.

Great.

He could already tell he wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, not like this. It’d be a pain in the ass tomorrow when people needed him for shit, but better to accept his fate now and maybe catch some Z’s later than lie around staring at the ceiling for three hours. Right? He looked over his shoulder at Aodhán, reduced to little more than a broad silhouette in the darkness. His fins twitched a little in his sleep, earrings clinking softly with the movement. Other than that and the slow rise and fall of his chest, he was still. Hopefully he wasn’t a light sleeper. 

Asher lifted the covers off himself and slowly crept out of bed, cursing under his breath at the inevitable noise when he stepped through the threshold of his room. Stupid fucking jangly bead curtain. Why did he decide that was a good idea? So stupid. Thankfully, Aodhán didn’t seem to stir. Asher turned his back and minced his way down the hall.

In the living room, Lily was sleeping on the couch, television playing infomercials in the background, too quiet to really make out. A stray beam of moonlight fell on her, casting her face in strange shadows. Hopefully she was getting better sleep than he had. He paused to pull her blanket up from where it had fallen, back over her shoulders, before continuing on his way to the bathroom. Hopefully a drink and maybe a nice warm bath would help him get back to sleep.

He flicked on the bathroom light, turning on the faucet and letting it run for a few moments before bending down to splash water on his face. Maybe a little counterintuitive, now that he thought about it, but fuck it. It was refreshing. A dude couldn’t have too much water.

Asher looked back up at his reflection in the mirror, reaching up to trace the bags under his eyes with a fingertip, and nearly jumped out of his skin. 

_ Fuck,  _ he was never going to get used to what had happened to his hands. The discoloration on his fingertips had darkened, from merely bruised to a true, deep black. Like ink, or the ocean on a moonless night. ...Maybe not that last one; the frostbitten look didn’t deserve such an elegant comparison. As he peered into the mirror, Asher could have sworn he caught movement in his reflection. 

“What the fuck?” He murmured, leaning closer to the glass, pulling at his face with blackened fingertips. There was  _ definitely  _ something moving, writhing just under the surface of his skin, a curl of dark black in the white of his eye. Almost like a vein, except for the way it wriggled out of sight as soon as he noticed it. Asher shuddered, pulling and prodding at his skin with increased urgency, desperately searching for the source of whatever was inside of him. If he could find it, if he could just pull it out, maybe…

But there was nothing there. All he was accomplishing was giving himself a sore face. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and tried to will this all away. It was fine. The excision was soon. It would all be over then. He just had to last it out a little longer. 

And anyway, how much of this was worth freaking out over? The black fingers were alarming, yes, but the rest...surely he imagined it, right? Asher opened his eyes again, willing himself to look into the mirror. 

And...nothing. Right. Exactly what he’d expected. The lights dimmed for a moment, making him jump, but upon closer examination there was nothing there, other than some zits stubbornly refusing to submit to his acne cream. Asher traced a line across his face, following the trail of the imagined tendrils with his fingertips.

Then he felt fingers pushing  _ back,  _ from beneath his skin. They pulled at the skin of his face, fingernails digging into the fat and muscle underneath. It was visible in the mirror, too; pulling at his face like they were trying to pull off a shitty Halloween mask. It was almost like they were mocking him, for ever believing it could have been imaginary. For thinking it might have been safe to let his guard down. 

He yelped, scrambling backwards like he could run away from the thing inside him, like there was anything he could do to stop it. He swore he could feel it--whatever it was, the parasite--curling through his ribs, fat icy tendrils oozing around his organs. Teeth on his spine, ephemeral fingers plucking at his nerves like strings on an instrument. The lights began to flicker in time with Asher’s shallow breathing. 

He moaned, leaning against the cold tile wall and sliding down to his knees. The faucet was still running, but he didn’t trust himself to get back on his feet, not like this. Fuck it. It wasn’t like he was paying the water bill, anyway. He let his head slump against the wall, trying to regulate his breathing, trying to calm the roiling in his gut. His hands felt so cold. 

He whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut as the invisible fingers pulled at his eyelids, trying to make him look. At what, he wasn’t sure. Maybe if he didn’t look, he could convince himself this was all in his head. If you can’t see it, it can’t see you, right?  It was the logic of a child scared of the dark, hiding his head under the covers, but it was what he had. If he could just cling to that, maybe this would all be okay. The nausea churning in his gut was almost certainly just from the drink he’d had before bed.

The room felt like it was adrift at sea, walls and floor warping into strange, organic shapes. Molding themselves around him. Forming strange, misshapen limbs to wrap around his own, pull him down into that deep dark, into the endless calm of the abyss. 

It wasn’t real. It was so cold. He was imagining things. The limbs’ grasping felt almost like an embrace. It wasn’t real. Waves lapped at his toes. It wasn’t real. He could feel the heavy, cold weight of something in his guts. It couldn’t possibly be real.

Oh, god. Asher wrenched his eyes open, lurching out of the grasp of imaginary tendrils and towards the toilet. Just in time, too, as whatever was writhing in his stomach began to crawl up his throat. He choked and gagged, gripping the porcelain so hard he was certain it would crack. Black froth bubbled up and spilled out of his mouth unbidden. It tasted like the sea, like things caught in the surf and left to rot. He could feel the lump in his throat making its way ever upward, and god, he wanted it  _ out,  _ but even more he dreaded seeing the shape of it. It was impossible to breath around it, but somehow he already knew there was nothing he could do to remove it before the exact moment it wanted to be removed. 

As he hunched over the toilet retching, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, a stark shadow against the rippling walls. A flash of purple and the glow of bright eyes in the darkness, there for just an instant. 

_ Aodhán?  _

Asher didn’t have time to dwell on it or call out for help, not before he felt a slick, writhing mass pressing on the back of his tongue, against his tonsils. His eyes burned and watered as his entire body shook with the need to get this  _ thing _ out of him. Icy water spilled from the sink and pooled around his legs, soaking his skin.  Bitter ink dribbled out of the corners of his mouth, glistening with fish eggs and unidentifiable shapes, as he waited helplessly for this to end. It was so cold. His jaw ached with the stretch of it; he was certain it would break before the thing finally escaped. The water was up past his hips now, seeping into his underwear. 

Whatever it was finally wrenched itself free of Asher’s throat, landing heavily into the water below. Just as it made impact, the lightbulbs exploded, shards of glass scattering into the flooded bathroom. Everything went dark. 

* * *

He woke up in his bathtub, weak beams of early-morning light shining in through the bathroom’s one tiny window. 

Fuck.  _ Fuck.  _ Asher jerked upright, looking frantically around for any sign of what had happened. The bathroom lights were intact. The floor was dry. His clothes were wet, but it seemed he’d been lying in a bathtub half-filled with tepid water for who knew how long, now. The only sign anything was amiss was the faint grey tinge to the water, like someone with cheaply dyed hair had rinsed in it. 

Asher shivered, staggering to his feet. He was  _ freezing,  _ far more than he had any right to be, even considering the state of his clothes. Taking a deep breath, he looked towards the toilet, the lump in his throat reminiscent of whatever it was that had crawled out of his guts the night before. 

There was nothing there. 

Not even the slightest indication that something  _ had  _ been there but had slipped down the drain. Nothing. The acrid taste of the ink lingered in Asher’s mouth even now, and he swallowed compulsively, trying to justify this in his mind. 

Had it been the alcohol? He hadn’t drank  _ that  _ much, had he? It wasn’t like he was a stranger to passing out after a night of drinking, but that usually didn’t involve...whatever the fuck the previous night had been. A hallucination, he hoped. Maybe it was a combination of things, the infection and the alcohol together. It wasn’t like the symptoms for this kind of thing were  _ established,  _ it could do anything. No one knew. 

He peeled off his soaked clothes with trembling hands, dropping them into the bathtub and shuddering when grey-tinged water splashed up against his legs. God, it was cold. It felt as though whatever had happened last night was lingering, a physical presence bearing down on him, breathing frigid air across his shoulders. 

Asher glanced behind himself, swearing under his breath when there was, inevitably, nothing there. He drained the dirty water, waiting until it was completely gone before he turned the showerhead on, as hot as he could stand it. Rationally, Asher knew very well hot water and soap would do less than nothing to help, but he needed it  _ off  _ him. Needed to scrub off his skin, get to where the thing lived and pull it  _ out.  _

Barring that, exfoliating was the next best thing. 

He didn’t get out of the shower until the room was cloudy with steam and the water had started to turn cold. By then, the sun had risen above the horizon. It was silly, but the daylight felt so much safer, emboldening him enough to step out. There were no messages scrawled on the foggy mirror or killer clowns lurking behind the shower curtain. No, in the light of day, everything from the night before seemed that much more impossible. Almost comical, really, that he’d believe something like that.  Asher wrapped himself in his softest robe and swished mouthwash until the fetid taste of saltwater and rot stopped lingering on the back of his tongue. If he treated everything like normal, maybe it would be. Right? With that in mind, he gave his hair a cursory towel-dry and put it into a silk bonnet before tiptoeing back out into the living room. Self care, or something.

Lily was still sleeping, though she’d turned on her side and bunched the blanket up around her shoulders, this time. Asher wasn’t going to wake her. What would he tell her, that he’d had a nightmare and needed a hug? They weren’t twelve anymore. Lily had enough shit on her plate as it was, he could be a big boy and handle his shit on his own.

He went to his room instead, cursing again at the noise the  _ fucking  _ bead curtain made. God. There was, at least, one good thing; the blackout curtains were doing their job. It was dark enough to sleep comfortably, with just enough sun peeking through the gaps in the curtains to soothe the scared animal part of his hindbrain. 

He pulled on some underclothes, careful not to be too loud while rummaging around in his drawers for something to wear. Ugh, he’d have to pick his soaked clothes out of the bathtub later. Once that was done, Asher crept over to his bed, still wrapped in his robe. It was getting cool this time of year, anyway. It was cozy, was all. Aodhán was still sleeping, long legs tangled in the blanket and frog feet dangling off the edge of the mattress. 

Right. Aodhán. 

Asher shook his head, trying not to think about last night’s events and jump to conclusions. He slowly pulled back the covers, trying to slip into bed without waking him. 

“Asher?”

Dammit.

“I’m just going back to bed,” he replied, forcing a reassuring smile when Aodhán rolled over and gave him a questioning look.

“You left?”

He shrugged. “Uh, yeah, I couldn’t sleep, so I took a shower. You didn’t notice?”

Aodhán said nothing, giving a noncommittal little finflick instead. 

“Right, uh.” Asher climbed into bed, unable to resist the curiosity gnawing at him in the silence. That shadow he’d seen...it had only been an instant, but those  _ eyes,  _ the way it  _ moved… _

“Did you get up earlier tonight?” He regretted asking as soon as he opened his mouth, but it was going to eat at him until he did. This needed to be put to bed. (Ha. Jokes.)

“I was in bed last night,” Aodhán replied, eyes wide and luminous in the dim room. “Why?”

Well.

Well, he couldn’t lie, right? That was how the fae worked, wasn’t it? So if he said he hadn’t woken up, Asher reasoned he had no choice but to believe him. And really, that was the most sensible option. Even with everything going on, some things were too much. 

“Nothing, man, don’t worry about it.” Asher rolled over and did  _ not  _ jump when he felt the sturdy weight of Aodhán’s arm around his waist. “Just weird fucking dreams, is all.” 

Weird dreams. That was all it was. 

He closed his eyes and ignored the shadows moving under his eyelids.


End file.
